To Knit or Not to Knit?

That is the question. In my children’s novel that I am working on now, the hero is a very young knight who can also knit. Back in the middle ages, the knowledge of knitting was not widespread, but it was valuable knowledge, since knitted items were in high demand. Knitting was a field dominated by men for quite some time. So young Kaye learns to knit from his Grandfather Wulfric. Kaye proves to have a great talent for knitting…he is very, very fast at it.

How fast can he knit? Well, how fast can anyone knit? I did a little research on the topic and found that Hazel Tindall holds a record for really fast knitting at 262 stitches in 3 minutes.

Here’s a link to an interview with Hazel Tindall that was uploaded in 2010. I’m not sure if she still holds the record for fastest knitter, but for the purposes of my research, 262 stitches in 3 minutes is really fast and yet is still humanly possible…for a few humans, anyway…and that includes the hero of my book, Sir Kaye.

In the interests of research, I had a friend give me a knitting lesson just so I could try to get inside my main character a little bit.

I think I may need a few more lessons. And also some more friends who knit to volunteer to read over my manuscript to let me know if I made any major errors where I’ve written about knitting. On the brighter side, I now have a much deeper understanding of Kaye’s best friend Reggie, who also got a few knitting lessons from Kaye and then decided it was not one of his talents. This works out well though, since Reggie narrates the whole story…I need to identify with him too!